


Certain Dark Things

by Ghostie



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No actual noncon, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 20:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostie/pseuds/Ghostie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hello, precious,” I murmured. “I think you’re on the wrong boat.”</p><p>Or: what might have happened if Molly wasn't there for the Harry-Thomas reunion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Certain Dark Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonlight69](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight69/gifts).



The shock hit me first. Cold shrillness, like icy water engulfing my body. I couldn’t move for a shuddered heartbeat, could only stare at the man. At Harry.

He looked a bit more worn than he’d been when I’d last seen him; the leather of his skin a bit tougher, the hollows of his face brushed with darker shades of purple and blue. Yet it was unmistakably him, from the stumble of his feet on the darkened stairs to his grimace as his head knocked the low ceiling in the corridor. Shock slowly melted into a kind of stinging anguish; no matter how much I looked at him all I could see was a stain, brilliant red under the Chicago sun, spreading impossibly large on the deck of this very boat. That stain had been the last I’d seen of Harry; I’d given up any hope I had for the kind of miraculous comeback he excelled in a long time ago. But here he was, clambering down my steps like he owned the place.

Except it wasn’t Harry. That was when the anger kicked in, and the icy hunger with it. I savored the taste of it, dark and rich like blood, in the spaces between my teeth. Who would be so presumptuous, so foolish? Who would dare? With a bit-back snarl I moved for the intruder, hefting an old tent stake I’d left lying on the table in my hand.

 “Hello, precious,” I murmured. “I think you’re on the wrong boat.”

Jumping at my voice, he banged his head against the hull and let out a short yelp. I felt a surge of affection before I tamped it down; it wasn’t him, _it wasn’t him._ “Stars and stones,” he breathed. “Thomas, you scared the hell out of me.”

Anger flared beneath the ice-cold mantle of my hunger; how dare this imposter be such a convincing simulacrum of my dead brother? I wanted to rip him apart, I wanted to ravage him, I wanted to cradle him to me and cry.

“Do you think this is funny?” I asked, my voice becoming louder, boiling with anger. “Do you think I am amused by this kind of prank?” I dropped the tent stake and wrapped my hands around his neck, ready to squeeze.

“Thomas,” he said. “It’s me.”

That was the last straw, because he said it with such bewildered trust that I was almost convinced it was him. No one but Harry would clamber into the den of a monster under cover of darkness and expect a warm welcome. And no one but Harry would have received one from me.

But this wasn’t Harry.

I snarled, twisting my hands tighter against his neck. “Harry Dresden is dead.”

The pronouncement of my brother’s death ringing through the cabin, I let the last thread of my control slip free, let my hunger rip through each and every vein of my body, ice cold and beautiful. Everything became hazy but him, and I saw a razor sharp smile bloom across my face in the widened whites of Not-Harry’s eyes.

My Hunger surged for him, wanted him like a druggie wants a hit, wanted him like a drowning man wants a spar of driftwood to cling to. It propelled me forward in throes of primal glee, needing to taste him, take him, _claim_ him.

I was no stranger to demons, and I’d wrestled with this particular demon for years. The number of nights I’d woken sweat-sheened and panting, the phantom taste of Harry on my lips, did not merit counting. That I’d never kissed him didn’t matter; my hunger was always happy to dream up possibilities, each delectable in their own right. Would he moan beneath me, shiver at my touch? Or shudder, scrabble at my back, leave bloody scratches glimmering like rubies on my marble skin?

I’d loathed how much I wanted him, cringed inward with my own self-hate whenever he smiled at me and saw a brother he could trust. And my hunger for him burned me too, left me feeling hollow out and aching. Because I loved him, and love will always hurt monsters like me. I would die before I hurt him, but the lust simmering beneath my fingertips felt like its own sort of betrayal, in a way.

Not tonight though. Tonight, it was a weapon.

I slammed my lips against his, savoring his gasp, the way he opened his mouth in shock. It was a break in his defenses and I exploited it gleefully, filling his mouth with my tongue.

Some distant part of me realized he was kissing me back, but I didn’t notice because my mouth was suddenly on fire. My lips were burning, his tongue was scalding against them and I thought I smelled burning flesh and realized it was mine-

And I couldn’t breathe. Not because it hurt. But because there was only one reason why his skin would have set mine alight, only one reason why half of my face was now a mess of scalding burns.

It was him.

But it couldn’t be because he was dead, I had seen the blood it was everywhere so much of it _so much blood_ \- I wrenched myself back, falling into a jumbled heap on the floor before him. A silence stretched between us, broken only by the bewildered heaving of my breath.

And then he reached out and stroked a single finger down the back of my hand.

I heard, rather than felt, the crackling of my skin as it burned.

“Harry?” I mumbled, staring at the scorched mark where he had touched me.

He was looking at me. Widened eyes were narrowing into slits of concern. “Thomas? What…?” I watched as his eyes roved over my burns, as he frowned and then suddenly nodded to himself, like he had made some kind of decision.

Closing his eyes like he was trying to recall something, he reached out and grasped my hand. I felt my hunger unfurl against his touch, felt the now-familiar burning of my skin, only to feel something else stir in him, rise up, and slam against the predator inside me, something huge and icy and cold.

Whatever it was dwarfed my hunger; it was as if I had been engulfed in a winter maelstrom, as if I was snow-blind in something whiter and older and hungrier than even the age-old predator that lurked within me. I felt shards of bruise-blue ice batter my skin, saw ribbons of green and purple light rending the air, heard quicksilver sheaves of icy wind shrieking around me.

And then I saw just Harry, and realized with a start that I was seeing him with my naked eyes, without the seething insistence of the White Court Mantle.

It was like everything had been stripped away. I wasn’t a predator anymore, was hardly even a man. It was as if every piece of icy armor I’d ever had had been stripped away and I was a boy again, staring at the body of the first human I’d killed, her lips still curled in a rictus of delight. I felt defenseless and cold, like I hadn’t in more years than I could remember.

“Not even the oldest of the White Hunters could hope to match the Mantle of the Knight of Winter,” he said, his eyes going distant, like he was seeing something either very far away or recalling something from very long ago.”

“You’re alive,” I croaked.

He grinned at me like I hadn’t just attacked him, hadn’t just forced him to kiss me.

The enormity of that particular betrayal swelled up inside me, and I felt like I wanted to vomit.  “Empty Night, Harry, I-“

He cut me off with a sharp slash of his hand. “You should have told me. Thomas, if I had known… you should have told me.”

And this time he was the one that kissed me, and I was the one that felt like I was drowning in him.

****

The bed was tiny but we managed to fit, even though my brother might as well be a small giant. He cradled me against him and told me everything, gesticulating wildly about fairies and Mab and angels of the Lord.

I listened to about half of it, to be honest. The rest of the time I was too busy focusing on the warmth of his hand in mind, the cadence of his words on the air, the steady beating of his heart. His beating heart. His _living_ heart.

“Why are you crying?” he asked me.

“It hurts.” I batted his concern away. “Don’t worry. I’m used to it.”

He kissed my forehead: once, twice. No lust, just tenderness, and I felt the burn of tears well up against my eyelids once again. “Love doesn’t have to hurt.”

I let out a laugh that sounded more like a strangled sob. “I’ve never known it not to.”

I felt his hands touch my cheek, and hesitantly, as if he were the one that might break me and not the other way around, wipe at the tear-streaks staining my skin. “Then let me show you,” he whispered.

I felt myself nodding, still not trusting him to be right but trusting him to try. Trusting that if the universe was kind enough to give back something I thought I had lost forever, perhaps it also held redemption for a broken monster I had thought was long past saving. I cleared my throat. “Then lead the way, Brother.”


End file.
